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The 2017 Phoenix award for
Poetry In Translation
...and the winner is…...Bella Link!
Je suis l’enfant de ce siècle
by Abdellatif Laâbi
Je suis l’enfant de ce siècle pitoyable
L’enfant qui n’a pas grandi
Les questions qui bruûlaient la langue
Ont brûlé mes ailes
J’avais appris à marcher
puis j’ai désappris
Je me suis lassé des oasis
et des chamelles avides de ruines
Étendu au milieu de chemin
la tête tourné vers l’Orient
J’attends la caravane des fous
I am a child of this centaury
translated by Bella Link
I am a child of this centuary
A child who never grew up
Doubts that burned my tongue
burned my wings
I learned to walk
then I unlearned it
I grew weary of oases
and camels greedy for ruins
I lie in the middle of the path
My head turned to the East
and I wait for the caravan of the crazy
Abdellatif Laâbi is a Moroccan poet, born in 1942 in Fes, Morocco
1n 1966, Laâbi, who was teaching French, founded the artistic journal Souffles . It became the centre of Moroccan crea-
tive energies: painters, film-makers, men of theatre, researchers and thinkers all expressed their ideas through this pub-
lication. It was banned in 1972, but throughout its short life, it opened up to cultures from other countries of theMa-
ghreb and the Third World.
Abdellatif Laâbi was imprisoned, tortured and sentenced to ten years in prison between 1972-1980 for "crimes of opin-
ion" (for his political beliefs and his writings). In 1985, he was forced into exile in France.
Laâbi’s political beliefs (reflected in the following comment) were judged criminal.
"Everythingwhich the Arab reality
offers that is generous, open and creative is crushed by regimes whose only anxiety is to perpetuate their own power
and self-serving interest. And what is often worse is to see that the West remains insensitive to the daily tragedy while
at the same time accommodating, not to say supporting, the ruling classes who strangle the free will and aspirations of
their people."